YourCelf · Sovereignty
Last updated 19 July 2026 · Back to Invite
YourCelf is built on one principle: your memories are yours. The app turns your photo library into the story of your life entirely on your device. There is no account, no cloud copy of your content, and no server that holds your data.
Nothing, by design. YourCelf does not collect, transmit, sell, or share your personal data. The app contains no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party tracking software, and we operate no service that receives your content. The App Store privacy label reads "Data Not Collected" because that is literally what the app does — and you can verify it yourself with a network monitor.
Two honest footnotes to "nothing": (1) like every website, our web server keeps routine access logs (IP address, time, and page requested) when your device fetches a page or file from beyourcelf.com — see the next two sections for the only times that happens; we use these logs only to operate the site and delete them on a rolling basis. (2) If you email us, we receive what you send — we use it only to reply and never add you to a list.
To build your story, YourCelf reads information that already lives on your device. Everything it reads, and everything it creates from it, stays on your device:
Photos. The app reads your photo library to recognize the people, places, trips, and moments in it. Face grouping, place lookups, and story text are all produced on the device. Your photos are never uploaded to us. If most of your library lives only in iCloud, the app will ask before fetching full-quality originals — that optional fetch goes through Apple's iCloud Photos, under Apple's terms, not through us.
Location in your photos. Place names are derived from the location data already embedded in your photos, resolved on the device. If you grant while-in-use location, it is used only to show a "you're here" card — never tracked in the background, never transmitted.
Calendar, Contacts, and Health (optional). If you choose to grant access, the app uses these only to enrich your story — for example, to label an event or match a name to a face — on the device. They are never transmitted, and you can decline or revoke them at any time in iOS Settings. Patterns the app surfaces from Health data are descriptive reflection, not medical advice, and health-derived content is never stored in iCloud by the app.
Camera (optional). Used only when you scan a document or capture a moment into your vault. Scanned pages, and any text the app reads from them, are stored encrypted on your device — word for word, searchable only to you — and the app gives you a review screen to see exactly what text was read, remove it, or delete the capture entirely. Nothing is uploaded.
You can turn on an optional on-device writing model for richer story prose. If you do, the app downloads the model file — once, over Wi-Fi — and this download is the only network request the app makes on our behalf. It is a download only: nothing about you or your data rides along with it. Our server (or the hosting service the file lives on) sees only the routine access-log entry any download produces. If you never turn the model on, the app makes no connections to us at all.
The model is Google's Gemma, provided under and subject to the Gemma Terms of Use and the Gemma Prohibited Use Policy. Details and required notices are on our licenses page. The model runs entirely on your device; your words never leave it.
Sharing only ever happens when you explicitly choose to share. When you share through a Circle, the content is sealed (end-to-end encrypted) on your device so that only the people you include can open it — we could not read it even if we wanted to, because we never hold the keys.
Three transport details, told honestly:
Invite links. Circle invitations travel as links (over Messages, or as a QR code). The invitation itself rides in the part of the link that never leaves your device pair (the URL fragment) — our server does not receive it. If someone taps an invite link without the app installed, their browser briefly loads a small page from beyourcelf.com to hand the invite to the app; like any page load, that leaves a routine access-log entry (IP and time — not the invitation's contents).
Delivery. Sealed content travels device-to-device (AirDrop-style nearby transfer) or through a relay that you or your family host yourselves. A relay only ever carries sealed envelopes it cannot open. We do not operate a relay that handles your content today; if we ever offer a hosted relay as a convenience, this policy will describe exactly what metadata it can see before it launches.
Copies. Once someone you shared with receives content, they hold their own copy on their own device — like a photo you text to a friend. Share with people you trust.
Because everything lives on your device, you remain in full control. You can export all of your data at any time, and you can permanently delete all of it at any time, from within the app — no request to us, and no permission from anyone, is required.
Privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act and the EU's GDPR give you rights to access, delete, and port personal data a company holds about you, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We hold none of your personal data, so there is nothing for us to produce, delete, sell, or share — the export and delete buttons in the app are your rights, exercised directly. We do not and will not sell or share personal information. If you believe we hold anything about you (for example, an email you sent us), write to us and we will confirm or delete it.
YourCelf is not directed at children under 13, and because the app collects no data, no information about anyone — including children — is ever gathered by us.
If this policy changes, we will update this page and revise the date above. Because the app does not collect data, changes will generally reflect new on-device features rather than new uses of your information.
YourCelf is made by its founder, Robert Angelo, in California, USA. Questions about this policy or your privacy? Email hello@beyourcelf.com.